


surrounded, and sprinkled, on all sides by stars

by strikethesun



Category: Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coronavirus Mentions, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, in the middle of the crack-to-angst continuum, maybe there's some reincarnation stuff going on there too?, ride sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26335867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikethesun/pseuds/strikethesun
Summary: @jangelooff. “De Blasio just signed an executive order banning all Uber/Lyft pools. One customer per ride, unless you're a couple. And it has to be "real couples," mayor says.” Twitter, 17 Mar. 2020, 1:45 p.m.,https://twitter.com/jangelooff/status/1239986306308083717.i've been haunted by this tweet for nearly six months, with a single idea pounding in my head—this, but with queeshmael.its birth has finally arrived, just in time for the inimitablepocketsizedquasar’s birthday. coronavirus timeline twisted on purpose. title from “the great comet of 1812,” of course.
Relationships: Ishmael/Queequeg (Moby Dick)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	surrounded, and sprinkled, on all sides by stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pocketsizedquasar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketsizedquasar/gifts).



Ishmael stumbled from the bar, flushed. He caught a glimpse of himself in a window slick with condensation and shuddered. He hadn’t had that much to drink, not  _ really,  _ but it always showed on his face. And for what? Why? His work buddies, presumably noticing his increasingly frequent Google searches for  _ legal whaling vessels hiring, _ or  _ how to disappear and wake up on a deserted island with no memory of the past,  _ or  _ non-painful drowning methods,  _ had decided to take him out to the corner bar before they all close down in some sort of attempt to...keep him at the company? keep him alive? actually forge some type of friendship? If Ishmael was ever going to figure out the answer to those questions, it wasn’t going to happen in his current state. 

Something had gone wrong, as it always does, and Ishmael had escaped. Now, with the sharp March wind pummeling him, he realized not only that he couldn’t remember what was said that made him want to leave so quickly, nor could he remember if it was something that  _ he  _ said or someone else, but also that it didn’t matter in the slightest. Looking up at the stars, his soul was laid bare. He was a child again, but also no one at all, but also an ancient with all his associated mythology, but also he was himself, not yet twenty-five, hands more calloused than they should be, scars running deeper than he could truly comprehend. 

So when an old college acquaintance, only half-remembered as a man with the unusual name of  _ Queequeg,  _ appeared at his side, he wasn’t surprised at all. He existed in a state beyond surprise. 

“It’s been a while, Ish. You okay?”

Ishmael pushed away from the brick wall he had been bolstering against, struggling to remember when he and the tall, athletic, popular, and imposing marine biology ( _ was that right?)  _ major would have become familiar enough to justify the nickname. “Uh, yes.”

Queequeg crossed his arms. “Right. I’d scold you for going to a bar at a time like  _ this,”  _ gesturing at random, as though a public health crisis was something physical that hung in the air until it passed, “but you look like you just learned some sort of lesson on your own. Need help getting home?”

Ishmael’s head swam. “Uh-huh.”

A smile spread across Queequeg’s tattooed face.  _ His tattooed face? Was it always tattooed like that?  _ A voice responded in the dark:  _ But it suits him so well.  _ “Alright, now. Where’s home for you?”

Within a minute or two, they figured out that they only lived a couple blocks away from each other, and that they could easily take the same Uber to save time and money. And perhaps there was something more in Queequeg’s dark eyes: an inexplicable urge to protect, rising with great force from the ground beneath their feet up through his chest, where it remained and sizzled quietly. 

The Uber came, but the driver frowned as he rolled down the window. “Brand new rule. Y’know, COVID. I can’t let two people in here unless you’re a couple.”

Without missing a beat, Queequeg put his arm around Ishmael’s shoulders. “Yep, I know. This is my boyfriend.”

The driver shrugged, waved a tired hand towards the backseat, and gave each of them a squirt of hand sanitizer. Before driving away, though, he turned around to face them.

“Just in case we get pulled over...are you guys, like, seriously a couple? Romantically?”

Ishmael turned to Queequeg, the former’s eyes impossibly wide and still reflecting the starlight that had just seemed so meaningful to him. Before Queequeg could interject, Ishmael grabbed his  _ tattooed face  _ and pressed his lips to it. Thankfully, Queequeg immediately eased into the kiss, and even brought a hand up to cradle the back of his head, where it remained for a surprising moment after they pulled their mouths away.

The driver had already turned away. “Alright, alright. When’s the wedding?”

“July,” Ishmael burst. “If this whole situation clears up by then.”

Queequeg had unconsciously moved his hand from Ishmael’s mess of blond hair to his knee. He made a quiet, but audible, sound of agreement, but then mouthed to Ishmael  _ That was smooth. _

Ishmael smiled.  _ I don’t know where the hell that came from. _

Queequeg rocked Ishmael’s knee back and forth, then gave it an affirmative pat. He pulled his phone out, tracked down Ishmael’s Facebook profile from his long list of  _ people added back in undergrad _ , and messaged him:  _ You remember me, right? _

Ishmael scrambled for his phone.  _...not really? _

Queequeg chucked, then spent the next minute or so typing out a response.  _ I thought you might not. I guess we weren’t really ‘friends,’ but we took a biology class together sophomore year. You were super into whales, and kept telling the class what you thought was so cool about them. I guess it made an impression on me. Sorry for assuming you go by ‘Ish.’ I think I overheard a friend of yours call you that once? I guess that made an impression on me too. _

While waiting, Ishmael turned his gaze back to the stars. He thought he remembered some of the names of the constellations, but when he tried to call any of them up, they came back all garbled, as though they had been put through many different translators in many different languages before finally returning to their English home.  _ Oh, this hangover’s going to suck.  _

As he read Queequeg’s text, a slow smile crept across his face. He hurriedly replied:  _ oh! yeah i remember you now sorry :’) you kinda intimidated me, ngl? not like you were rude or anything, you just seemed, like, impossibly cool, and i always wanted to get to know you better :)) _

_ Well, now’s your chance, I suppose. I hope you don’t mind keeping this couple thing up until we get to our destination? _

_ no not at all! you make a great fake boyfriend :) _

At a stoplight, the driver, noticing the quiet in the back of his car, turned around briefly to find Queequeg’s strong arm stretched over Ishmael’s shoulders. He wasn’t truly suspicious; to be quite honest, he didn’t give a crap whether the two men in his car were a couple or not, just as long as he didn’t get in trouble for giving a  _ non- _ couple a ride. But the two looked so comfortable with one another that even  _ if  _ it was simply a ploy, he figured they would hook up soon enough anyways. 

Ishmael actually managed to nod off for a couple minutes, his head nestled on Queequeg’s broad chest. The latter looked down at his pale face, lit up with the intermittent glow of streetlights, and marvelled at his good fortune. He was struck with an almost painful sense of longing that he hadn’t felt since that fateful biology class, when he would simply stare at Ishmael as he perhaps  _ over- _ participated in every single discussion—but to him, Ishmael couldn’t  _ over _ do anything, he was perfection. It wasn’t a satisfying sort of perfection though; Queequeg felt like he was falling for a statue, albeit one with ragged edges and a lopsided grin. He had pushed that feeling down for years, and now he had the statue in front of him, on top of him, except it had magically transformed into a man, slowly breathing in time with his own breaths. When the car stopped, there was a moment where Queequeg dreaded moving a muscle, but the jolt of the brakes opened Ishmael’s eyes for him. They got out of the car, and the driver left them with a knowing wink. 

“Sorry for falling asleep on you there,” Ishmael sheepishly muttered.

Queequeg found himself grabbing Ishmael’s hand suddenly. “Don’t worry about it, Ish—wait. You didn’t really tell me whether or not you minded the nickname.”

Ishmael squeezed his hand back. “I don’t. Mind it, that is.”

Queequeg looked back at the map on his phone. “I still want to make sure if you’re alright. If you want, you could spend the night at my place, and…”

“Yeah,” Ishmael said. “Yes. That sounds wonderful right now.” 

And so they walked, hand-in-hand, towards Queequeg’s apartment. Ishmael still felt the weight of centuries on his breast and Queequeg still felt the weight of Ishmael on his own. Something, something otherworldly and all-consuming and universal and flowing and coursing and rushing and bursting and shattering had tied them to one another. It defied all description, all categorization, all narrativization, and all compartmentalization, so this story stops here; it has no more words left to tell. 

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i finally gave up on the all-lowercase-writing thing; part of growing up is accepting that you aren't the next e.e. cummings for forgoing typical styles on ao3 dot org
> 
> also i'm so sorry sahar
> 
> note: the author is dead so who cares but the recipient of this fic told me that they read the uber driver as peter coffin so you know what? it's canon now. unintended canon


End file.
